How can the Sumei fish, which travel through the coral thickets, find their favorite "object" in the fish school, and then "courtship" to get married? Growing up near the shore, how does it adapt to different lights in the coral reef and feed? Recently, Professor Tang Wenqiao's team of Shanghai Haihai Ocean University published a paper in the mainstream biological journal "molecularecologyresources", using corrugated lipfish as the research object, and explained the molecular mechanism of fish visual gene duplication for the first time in the world.
The scientific name of the sumei fish is the corrugated lip fish, which is a large coral reef fish with a bright body color, sexual reversal, female ripening and male-male pairing breeding behavior. Liu Dong, associate professor of Shanghai Maritime University and a member of Professor Tang Wenqiao's team, introduced that Su Meiyu has extremely high requirements for his spouse to maintain the purity of his offspring.
In the study, the scientists found that the corrugated lip fish lost some visual genes, but others were duplicated. This duplication is rare among fish. The team further used gene collinear analysis to resolve the molecular mechanism of gene duplication. The researchers found that the replacement of the critical tuning point of the corrugated lip fish opsin changed the spectral absorption capacity of the visual pigment. The duplication of visual genes and the tissue differentiation of their expression provide visual selectivity for larvae and adults to adapt to different coral reef habitats, enhance visual foraging ability, facilitate effective identification between breeding mates, and also provide effective clues for the study of conservation biology and adaptive evolution of coral reef fish.
The corrugated lip fish is rare in number and is a national second-level key protected wild animal in China, and is listed as an endangered animal by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Since 2013, Professor Tang Wenqiao's team has been engaged in the research of corrugated lipfish.
In the next step, the research team will conduct research on the evolution of the body shape of corrugated lip fish, further revealing the secrets of their growth.
Author: Wu Jinjiao Cai Xia
Editor: Li Chenyan
Photo: Shanghai Ocean University